Social Media Trends to Prepare for in 2019

Many brands and agencies have successful social media strategies. But because social media is always on and constantly evolving, what works now won’t work forever. After all, it already seems like an eternity since Facebook only had one “like” option and tweets were capped at 140 characters (remember the outcry over #280characters?).

Without keeping up to date with social media trends and changes, growing brand awareness and engagement becomes much more challenging. 2019 is just around the corner but you’ve still got precious time to build a concrete plan for engagement and content strategy.

To stay ahead of the curve, keep these top social media trends in mind as you prepare for 2019.

Socially savvy executives

One of the most prominent changes in the digital age is how we perceive a company’s leaders. The stereotype of the C-level executive working away in the corner office has largely diminished. As evidenced by prominent business leaders, from LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, social media is increasingly being used by company leaders to share insights, connect with communities, and listen to global audiences.

Running a business is stressful and time-consuming, but being active on social media will become an even larger part of doing business in 2019.

Making ads more personal with LinkedIn

One thing that never changes in social media is the ubiquity of advertising. In fact, recent research says 66 percent of B2B marketers used paid methods to distribute content last year, and 80 percent said they used paid methods to reach a new audience.

LinkedIn’s new ad features, called Dynamic Ads, negate the risk of ads becoming impersonal and invasive to social audiences. With LinkedIn Dynamic Ads, you can personalise paid ad content and inspire more authentic communication with audiences. Solutions like this could have a big part to play in recovering trust in social media going into 2019.

Telling Stories on Instagram

Since launching in 2010, Instagram has become the go-to social network for people to share memorable moments and personal highlights from their lives. More recently, Instagram Stories has made it easy to share everything that happens in between.

Due to its popularity, Stories has changed the way that Instagrammers interact with each other — and by extension, with brands. As counterintuitive as it sounds, perhaps the most valuable content is short-lived.

What makes the Stories feature so valuable for brands and agencies — aside from the fact that it’s about twice as popular as Snapchat — is that you don’t need to invest a huge amount to make the most of it. You can share pictures or behind-the-scenes videos that give your audience a glimpse of your values and culture without spending a cent. More importantly, you can do so as frequently as you want without overwhelming your followers with half a dozen posts in a day.

We expect the Instagram story (and Stories) to go from strength to strength in 2019.